


Morningstar

by ravenoftheninerealms



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, Limbo, M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:24:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenoftheninerealms/pseuds/ravenoftheninerealms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The die in his pocket clatters against the piece of sharp porcelain, and he knows the small  object is important but can’t remember why..."</p><p>A snippet of a job gone horribly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morningstar

It takes Arthur what he knows is too long to look up and snap out of his routine.

He takes a step back, setting the pen down next to the neat computations, rows and rows of boxes and names, facts and places in that small notebook. Wanders through his monochromatic apartment, no “soul” in sight but a sure investment if he ever decided to resell. His mind tells him there’s no one here to buy it, and the soul left when Eames did. He walks around the white chaise lounge, the dark wood and glass of the coffee table with Architectural Digest arranged underneath, looks out the large wall of windows that show him the view of an empty, recreated New York City and the expansive ocean beyond it from his expensive little cubicle in a tall, tall tower full of other expensive little cubicles. Treads on the cold cherrywood floors past the stacks of other identical notebooks left on his glass and brushed steel desk, stares at his bedroom, the large downy queen mattress not used to holding only him. Opens the ash-grey closet doors; they glide back into the wall without protest and reveal a space only half-stocked with hanger upon hanger of perfectly cleaned and tailored oxfords, vests, suits, and trousers, all in careful neutral tones. 

He walks back to the skyline view, threading his way through the modern furniture, not even glancing at the masterpiece of stainless steel and immaculate white granite that is the kitchen. He sits carefully on the arm of a slate grey suede chair, looks out the window, and calmly thinks that never in his life has he wanted more to fracture every stick of wood, crack the granite and glass, because every trace of his other half is gone and yet it’s all he sees. He wants to watch it all go up in a wonderful explosion of flame that would lick out of the building and into the night, one more shade of orange in a light-polluted sky.

But he doesn’t. 

He puts on his shoes, straightens his tie. Picks up the red die from its place in a ceramic bowl spidered with cracks, nestled beside the fragile statue of a colorless angelic herald sipping tea. His fingers dance in the air over where the figures’ strong, sloping shoulders connect seamlessly to half-spread wings. He can’t look it in the eye, knowing the questioning gaze of it’s one arched eyebrow underneath the severe part of its hair will rip him apart even as he feels more and more numb and raw. Fingers pushing gently at the very edge of the delicately sculptured pinion feathers, he performs his one final act of defiance. 

Watching as if it’s someone else, his hand moves and the statue tips. It shatters on the wood floor, milk-white and in ten thousand small, jagged pieces. He can’t remember watching it fall through the air. A pale fragment with the artist’s signature remains intact -- one of the only works he ever remembered seeing his forger put a ‘real’ name on. Back then, the statue had been, on the surface, a cheeky gift, but in the absence of the sculptor it became something very close to his heart. 

He wants to turn the six-burner professional chef’s oven on, let the gas fill the air and time a spark to set the place ablaze. He could think about it, and it’d be done.

But he doesn’t. 

He simply walks out the door, taking the stairs to the roof.

The die in his pocket clatters against the piece of sharp porcelain, and he knows the small object is important but can’t remember why, and he can hear faint strains of Edith Piaf in the wind on the rooftop. He stands at the edge, holding his red die in one hand and the engraved piece of statue cuts into the palm of the other hand. He knows it’s time and the French singing counts down and he lets himself fall. 

He knows the kick he rides will take him to Eames.

And if it’s not a kick, well. Arthur doesn’t think he’ll mind being dead.


End file.
